


Scenes of a Genoshan Persuasion

by furius



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: First Class (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Jane Austen Fusion, F/F, F/M, Genosha, M/M, Political Alliances
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 13:26:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14450217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furius/pseuds/furius
Summary: Once upon a time, Erik and Charles loved each other, but it wasn't enough. Twelve years later, politics divides them further, but Charles has come back to Genosha.





	Scenes of a Genoshan Persuasion

**Author's Note:**

> A Jane Austen Persuasion AU I found. Most of it is written, I'm just editing and posting.

-=-=

Erik woke up on the floor again. At least he dragged a blanket down with him this time. Dawn had just crept past the horizons, light was unfurling across the room. The edge of the rough wool glittered with gold.

His phone hadn’t buzzed. He sat up slowly, feeling every inch of the movement. “You’re getting old,” he thought to himself. Thirty-five wasn’t old elsewhere. In another place he would be in the prime of life. But after a decade of hiding and fighting, spending long hours in the dark, in the mud, often exhausted and half-starved, Erik’s body had more scars than his face showed. It was just as well he had learned to manipulate the magnetic fields immediate to him in time. Flying avoided aggravating the honorable sacrifices he made for the country.

No; he didn’t regret the days when it rained and old injuries seemed almost as painful as the days when the wounds were fresh. He did, however, wonder whether some of them could have been avoided if he had someone by his side since the beginning. Perhaps more battles would’ve been won had there been a second pair of eyes, another mind, another soul, that minded Erik when he had been mindless, caught in his own rage to have forgotten that he and his friends were mortal and the enemy, for all his animal brutality, fiendishly clever. 

Somewhere in the distance, a cock crowed. Erik glanced at his cold bed, the pillows only crumpled on one side, sighed, and walked to the dresser and began pulling out the day’s clothes.

He did, once, have someone who had cared and who shared with him hopes and everything else that youth had given them. Then, Erik had been too uncertain, too distrusting of everyone, even of himself. Their ambitions diverged. Erik saw his disappointment, became angry. They parted. Miserably. He left the country. Erik stayed.

The few months of the affair with Charles Francis Xavier, he of the fearless intellect, the infectious good cheer— that vital difference from Erik’s own temper— eyes the color of summer sky, and the most terrifying power Erik had ever encountered, had caused more pangs and regrets for Erik than all the years of war that followed.

In the formation of the Brotherhood, Erik had tried to recover something of what he had lost and yet found himself longing uselessly for it all the same despite each success, each victory, each laudation, and each infatuated mutant who sought his bed. It was as if Charles carved a space inside Erik that was just his shape and the void of his absence allowed no other companionship, no second love, to ease its desolation.

Time flew. Chance for another innocent love was long time gone. He could barely remember the experience except for the tenderness Erik remembered Charles, forever young and bright by his side, the future full of possibilities stretched before them.

The phone rang. Erik picked it up. 

“Good morning Magneto, Mystique has returned,” Angel informed him. Erik could almost hear her yawning. “She’s waiting in the breakfast room.”

Magneto thanked her and found Mystique talking to Azazel at the table with a pot of coffee between them and the remnants of what looked like half-supper, half-breakfast: roasted chicken, potatoes, eggs, pancakes, and fresh peaches and strawberries.

Erik hadn’t even seen strawberry jam for a month. The fruit trees grew at the opposite side of Genosha and most of the orchards had been converted to grow nuts instead because they were easier to harvest.

Mystique saw him and said, “Congratulate us, President Magneto. The human governments are eager to normalize.” Her smile was blindingly white against the blue of her face. “All relations with Republic of Genosha. No more embargoes. Eat up.”

-=-=

The first olive branch extended toward Genosha after the Revolution had been from the United States. The diplomats spoke of commonalities and mutual understandings, but Magneto and the rest of his cabinet and the majority of the senate were wary of the possibilities of a military and economically might interfering in their own nascent infrastructure.

“Carefully,” warned Riptide. “We must be careful. We are the Republic of Genosha, already a nation of immigrants, not a place to be colonized, not a place to be exploited. They should be afraid of us. Respect us. Mutants may be less than ten percent of the population in every other country in the world except for Genosha, but this is where mutants would always find a home.” 

And sitting on the grass, Essex’s palace not quite restored behind them --the smell inside the rooms was still nauseating though the broken furniture had been removed and bleach applied to the walls, the ceilings -- Erik looked on the hills on the horizon and could feel the buzz of the city in the lowlands. The summer sky of Genosha was an unending expanse of blue. They had fought and bled under it for eight years. Home seemed like a distant memory, an intimate construction of childhood, safety, and hope. It was difficult to remember he had ever been happy here; it was easier to wish happiness for others. But he could afford better than wishes now; he could make the happiness certain.

“The orphan population in Genosha, however, is disproportionate. There are children lacking parents. I think we agree that temporary shelters could not be long term solution,” Azazel said.

“Not if we’re to build a nation,” Emma said. “We will not repeat Essex’s mistakes. There will be no underclass of mutants, no matter their form or abilities. We will not have an army of the discontented against us.”

The Brotherhood must hold power, democracy or no. They had determined that stability of a nascent nation was the only way Genosha might prosper. And to that end, each and everyone of them had sworn their lives. 

Mystique spoke: “But a nation needs to be recognized as such.” She looked to Azazel. “We will go into the world as we are.” 

“And?” asked Erik, curious.

“We will call upon the mutants of the world. It is to be their nations as well as ours. There are institutions without allegiances to any nation. There are charities, wait-” she said before Erik could interrupt- “There are charities, foundations, and funds that were supposed to help us and we will take whatever help we can have.” She smiled brightly, saying, “it will make us seem...human.”

“And then the human governments will let us be a government ourselves,” Azazel followed, “though I am red and she is blue. We have overthrown a tyrant that threatened the world, we go to the mutants out of Genosha on behalf of children.” He laid a tender hand on Mystique’s flat belly. “Who would say no?”

-=-=


End file.
